Clinical pharmacology and therapeutics

摘要

Therapeutic practice rarely changes greatly as a result of a single investigation or trial. Traditionally, experiments carried out in the laboratory lead to small scale studies in humans, some of which may be translated into larger controlled clinical trials, which, if successful, may begin to influence patient management. The time scale of this process varies greatly. At one end of the spectrum a new biotechnology product may be developed with great rapidity, tested in a small cohort of patients, and be used by specialists within seven to eight years of its initial design. On the other hand valuable information on drugs of proved therapeutic value may languish in the literature for some 10 to 15 years before being widely accepted into clinical practice (for example, thrombolytic drugs after myo-cardial infarction). Dissemination of the results of research is as important as the original research itself, and implementation may represent an even bigger hurdle.